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Hi Nonny!

I don't know where in the world you're located but here's a few suggestions I have:

1. Check out skating fan blogs. There are a lot of great blogs dedicated to skating, both here on tumblr and on other sites/forums. Most of these blogs are more active than I am (I watch where I can, but my creative endeavors/my unwillingness to pay for cable tv here in America, limits my ability to follow the entire season). I've found many are very welcoming communities. And, if they're not, move on, there will be another online group happy to welcome a new fan!

2. Follow the skating competitive season! The main season begins with the Grand Prix Series, starting with the Qualifiers, then the GPF finals, then Four Continents, Europeans, each country's Nationals, the World Championships, and then the World Team Trophy. In America (where I live), most of the qualifiers are shown on the Olympic Network, or NBC affiliates. Only major competitions are shown on network TV or aired on Peacock. However, there are livestreams you can watch (if you don't mind the commentary maybe not being in your language. It should be relatively easy to search for Skating TV listings in your home country or streaming apps that are showing the events! Also, it's not really something we do in the USA, but other countries will hold watch parties in their local rinks sometimes.

3. If you find a way to watch, invite friends! Whether you're watching with online friends (I'm always happy to watch, if I can), or inviting your own friends over to watch an event with you (I have converted many a friend this way), skating is more fun to watch together!

4. If you can't watch, follow along through the news. Skating has a wide following worldwide (it's actually a MUCH bigger sport outside of the USA). There are several magazines, include the aptly named Skating (which are available in digital), the official ISU websites. If you want to learn more about this history of the sport, there are also a lot of great and really interesting books!

5. Go take a skating lesson or two. A lot of rinks offer Learn to Skate classes for beginners of all ages. You're sure to find likeminded soon-to-be friends if you take a class or two.

Yes Anon, it really does!

My friends and I were just talking about this. Maybe my writing partner (@ecspencepresents) and I should host a post-Olympics Yuuri rewatch party.

What do you think?

Honestly, I think it's awful.

The Russians are already being punished by the IOC for doping (it's why they have to compete as the Russian Olympic Committee instead of as Russia). Clearly, that punishment did absolutely nothing to deter them. All this does is send a message that you can get away with using banned substances if you're a minor.

I think the argument that she should be allowed to compete for her mental health is weak. Either way she's going to suffer. By allowing her to compete, if she wins, her gold will be tarnished, her reputation forever dragged, and hate she's going to get for it are going to be just as detrimental.

I do feel sorry for her. She was failed by the adults around her, and they are the ones that really need to be punished and punished SEVERELY. No minor without an actual heart condition needs to be on heart medication.

However, allowing Valiyeva to compete is absolutely UNFAIR to the rest of the skaters who had to build their endurance naturally, trained hard to get where they are, and skate without the use of performance enhancing drugs.

Hi Friend!

The results were pretty on par with what I was expecting. I figured the Americans would vie for the bronze and Hubble and Donahue had that advantage going into the Free Dance.

I found the silver medal team extremely boring (but as I am not afraid to admit, I find most Russian skaters and teams to be boring to watch. They're technically proficient, but they currently all skate canned balletic routines to what skaters call "Warhorses" aka overused classical music tracks.

You just can't argue with Papadakis and Cizeron as the gold medalists. They were just stunning.

From now until forever! Congratulations Nathan Chen, a well deserved, golden performance!

#SCANDAL

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/09/1079512063/olympics-figure-skating-medals-russia-kamila-valieva

You can bet my dramatic ass will be watching this unfold with bated breath. Holy shit.

Hell yes, I am Nonny!

Awwww, friend, me too.

Of course, I'm rooting for Nathan Chen, but Yuzuru's under so much pressure.

And to have sat out the majority of the season for injury with his first major competition back as the Olympics has to add even more.

Hi friend!

I've been lurking, like a swamp creature in the fetid cesspool that is New York City...just kidding (well, sort of.)

Work/life/creative projects sort of came and swept me up, as these things tend to do. When the Yuri on Ice craze died down (because we are still STARVED for new content years later) so too did this blog.

I found myself missing all of you when thinking about ice skating and the Olympics, so I have made (my version of) an Olympic comeback! If people stay engaged afterwards, I'll do my best to stick around too.

But I'm always over on my author blog @ecspencepresents where you can scream about sci-fi with me and my co-author and get updates on our free LGBTQ sci-fi series Anxious Gretchen: Space Archaeologist. Which you can read (FOR FREE) HERE (SHAMELESS, SHAMELESS PLUG).

RYLAND, MY FRIEND, IS THAT YOU?!

(I've missed you! Are you still skating?)

Of course we can talk about Kamila Valieva...like, what's in the water over in Russia that they keep turning out these insane skaters in the women's division? (I kid, I know they have an almost annoyingly deep field and an insane training regime).

But WOW, she makes those quads look effortless, doesn't she?

I do wish they'd let her skate to something that is closer to her age/personality because, as artistic as she is, I don't really feel like she connects to Bolero (which should have been retired from the ice after Torvil and Dean's famous program eons ago). Temptation in the garden of good and evil is kind of a more mature theme? It's abstract for me as a full grown adult, I don't even know what I would've done as teenager attempting to interpret it.

My favorite part was where she broke into this huge, joyous smile when she was past the hard elements, and I felt like I finally got to see HER and her love of skating.

Hey Nonny,

I can promise it was due to distraction and not for any lack of joy/admiration!

I was watching the Men's Short with my sister (Codename: Toepick, former competitive skater, current coach) and my friends here in NYC, and my friend in Colorado via zoom. And we were all SO. NERVOUS for Nathan Chen's skate, I swear it took ten years off my life.

THEN, we spent the whole next skater's routine screaming in glee/expressing our relief and by then, it was time for my boi, Jason Brown to take the ice and we all know how I get when it comes to watching Jason skate.

If you want my review of the program: CHEF'S KISS. It was a joy to behold. Clean, powerful, artistic, entertaining. He absolutely deserves the top spot he's sitting in.

(And Jason totally deserves to have placed as high as he did, skating in the last group!)

From now until the end of time. That was SO. DAMN. BEAUTIFUL.